Over the years, mid market accounting packages have come and gone, but few have been as enduring as SunSystems from the Systems Union Group. Tony Martin, Business Development Director at Sapphire Systems, (for the fourth year in a row, Systems Union's number one global partner) puts its success down to the initial design of the package, which is still as relevant today as it was over two decades ago.
At the heart of SunSystems long running success is the concept of the 'unified ledger' which helps to simplify transaction processing whilst simultaneously opening up the possibility of more sophisticated analysis. Whereas most software packages were developed with separate modules governing accounts receivable, accounts payable and the general ledger, SunSystem's single ledger design, accompanied by extensive user definable analysis, enables the package to satisfy complex accounting requirements and fulfil a wide range of industry needs. As a result, the package finds favour not only in the mid-market but also in complex head office settings in large corporates, the public sector and not-for-profit organisations.
"If an organisation has complex financial and analytical requirements such as profitability by product, geography and customer, we find that SunSystems is a good fit. The master file analysis capability coupled with the famous "T" codes, (transaction codes) means that we can analyse a business in a virtually limitless number of user definable ways whilst keeping the general ledger coding structure compact and manageable," Martin told FSN.
Peter Watson, head of corporate management information at the Citizens Advice Bureau agrees. "As a charity we have to manage a large number of different funds and analyse them in many different ways. In most other packages this would lead to a very unwieldy chart of accounts structure," he told FSN.
Flexibility in the unified chart of accounts has also proved invaluable to Kinetic Worldwide, a media services company that specialises in 'out of home' advertising. Steven Hind, Kinetic's financial accountant told FSN, "As a media buyer, we have to match our media purchases to our sales, 'back to back' to make sure that we only pay our creditors when we are paid. This would be very difficult to achieve across a modular ledger design. We also like the fact that SunSystem's design adapted easily to the way we worked rather forcing us to change our processes," he said.
Martin adds, "The beauty of the unified ledger design is that the user has only one interface to learn. It is also easy to accommodate changes in the business and because all of the organisation's data is held in one 'bucket' it is extremely easy to pull out any ad-hoc analysis and reports," he added. For example, The Citizens Advice Bureau makes extensive use of the Vision Suite and dynamic Excel links to generate both ad-hoc and preformatted reports. "Every night we schedule the production of departmental variance reports and distribute them automatically to around 70 departments' network folders for them to review the next day," says Watson.
David Parker, group financial controller at Charterhouse Group International, a provider of remuneration solutions uses SunSystems to generate his monthly management accounts and year end financial statements. "We used to juggle a large number of spreadsheets for management reporting which was very time consuming. Now, our bespoke operational systems feed information directly into SunSystems from which we can produce our management accounts. This has given us much faster reporting," he told FSN. "Provided you are prepared to put the effort into designing the appropriate structures one can get much more detailed analysis and reporting. For instance, using SunSystems analysis codes on the accounts payable side we can see how much the HR department has spent on training courses, by course type or employee," added Parker.
Given the apparent versatility of the system one might have expected it to be difficult to implement and support, but Martin says emphatically that this is not the case. "SunSystems is very scalable, robust and reliable. We have very small businesses using it, right up to customer sites with several hundred users. But we can put the systems in and know it is going to work every time. " he says.
In fact, Martin regards high quality support as Sapphire's 'stock in trade' and is keen to explain the difference in their approach. "It's the opposite of what every one else does," he told FSN. "Rather than train graduates fresh out of university on the help desk, we use knowledgeable consultants with many years experience of using and implementing the product. These are also people who genuinely want to work in this role and it makes a real difference."
David Parker certainly appreciated the Sapphire touch. "We used help desk support a lot in the first six months after we went live with SunSystems in 2003 and found them to be extremely helpful and responsive," he says.
Martin believes that the approach to support is fundamental to Sapphire's unparalleled record of customer retention. "As a private company, we do not have external shareholders to satisfy and can plough an appropriate amount of resource into support functions. Furthermore, the founders of our business are still active in its day to day running. Many of our customers have been with us for years and we are of a size that every customer matters."
Peter Watson, of the Citizens Advice Bureau is effusive about the relationship with Sapphire Systems. "We were looking for a genuine partnership with a reseller. We did not want someone who would just implement the software and walk away, because the market changes. We wanted an organisation that that would take a pro-active interest, keep us informed of developments and suggest both companion products and integration opportunities. Sapphire visits us twice a year but they are not pushy and they will tell us if they consider a product is not right for our organisation."
Steven Hind of Kinetic says that Sapphire got off to a good start with their effort to understand their sector. "When we were looking for a system last year, Sapphire put together a tailored demonstration around our specific industry requirements, which no other supplier bothered to do. They also brought in a lady from a media background who understood our industry and the software," he said.
But the versatility of SunSystems has also helped Sapphire to grow in parallel with many of its customers. Martin says, "There are plenty of examples of customers that have come back to us following the success of the initial implementation to add more functionality or to explore new ways of supporting other processes. Furthermore, SunSystems has grown globally and many of our customers have overseas operations. The product is multi-currency and multi-lingual, with for example, three Chinese versions. Whilst we are primarily UK focussed, it means that we can leverage the dealer network to provide local support overseas when required."
Both the Citizens Advice Bureau and Charterhouse Group International have bought additional software and services based on their favourable experiences with Sapphire Systems and the SunSystem's unified ledger software. "I believe that Sapphire is SunSystems' number one re-seller and from what I can see, their position is fully justified," says Watson.
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